LiquidStack says its new CDU can chill more than 1MW of AI compute

As GPUs and AI accelerators push beyond one kilowatt of power consumption, many systems builders are turning to liquid cooling to manage the heat. However, these systems still rely on complex networks of plumbing, manifolds, and coolant distribution units (CDUs) to make it all work. On Thursday, LiquidStack, best known for its …

[IGotOut]

Dear reg...

Please stop using incorrect measurements.Its happening in a stupid amount of articles lately.

"LiquidStack says its new CDU can chill more than 1MW of AI compute"

So after it's done 1MW it just stops working?

Did you know the speed of light is 299,792,458 metres?

[Faraday]

Re: Dear reg...

TFW you think you are making a smart comment but for some reason the whole world is laughing...

[diodesign]

A watt is a joule per second

Look, we regrettably make some errors from time to time for various reasons, some due to deadline pressures, some due to misunderstandings by us or our sources -- but if you see "a stupid amount" of errors then you might want to consider that we're not the ones who are wrong.

The problem I think you have is that you see "cooling capacity" and you think some kind of quantity, like a mass, is involved. Understandable given the terms. But cooling capacity is specified in watts (the unit of power). It's a rate. Just like the speed of light is given in metres per second, cooling capacity is given in watts, and watts are joules per second.

Think of the 1MW cooling capacity as the rate of refrigeration, the opposite of heating. Your kitchen electric kettle might heat your water at a rate of 1200 J per second (1.2kW). A 1MW CDU takes 1MJ out of the system a second.

HTH. Try to give us some credit, ta.

C.

[DS999]

"Can" be equipped with redundant parts?

Is there anyone who would splash out the kind of cash required to buy this liquid cooling system who wasn't cooling something important enough to require redundancy?

Surely they should build that in, not make an extra cost option.

[Alan Brown]

Re: "Can" be equipped with redundant parts?

There are two kinds of redundancy.

Cooling for ther equipment itself, or a complete redundant set of equipment which can be switched to if the cooling (or power, or equipment) fails

One size definitely doesn't fit all and there are occasions when low level redundancy adds costs without adding more 9s

[Alan Brown]

"Next-gen systems from companies like Nvidia will cram somewhere between 5.4kW and 5.7kW of compute in a single RU server and upwards of 120kW in a single rack."

15 years ago when I suggested this might happen, planners in our facilities department openly laughed and mocked me

Now they're scrambling to beef up cooling systems which are proving inadequate which in turn were installed to replace cooling saystems that had been inadequate from the outset because they wouldn't listen to what I was telling them about rack power consumption trends, plus all the guerilla computing installations needing to be brought into the server room - and facing the prospect of replacing the entire power feed that was installed as part of that upgrade because it was despecced from what I said would be needed in future

I'm glad to be out of that mess and amused to see my old job still being advertised 2 years after I left - now offering double what I was being paid with the ads recurring every 4 months (It's still not enough to go back and the published job description only covers about 25% of what's actually expected of the position)